melt me down into big black armour
by but seriously
Summary: "You feed or you die. You're hungry, I can hear it rushing in your veins, I can smell it in the sweat trickling down your back. You feed or you die—and it won't be starvation that takes you." It will be me, she doesn't say. And she doesn't smile. [GENDERSWAP]


**notey notes**: originally prompted on my tumblr, "Klaus and Caroline genderswap: "Once I wanted to be the greatest, no wind or waterfall could stall me. And then came the rush of the flood. Stars at night turned deep to dust."

I had this saved in my drafts forever and I finally decided to type it out today. And I'm _sorry_ if this isn't what you wanted, but I've never written genderswap before and oh god I hope it lives up to your expectations. And I hope I didn't mess any characterizations up, ehhhhh. I'M SORRY, I TRIED OKAY.

inspired by hotbloodedhunter's to/tvd genderswap series! you can find it here: hotbloodedhunter. tumblr tagged/genderswap*

* * *

—

**melt me down into big black armour**

—

—

The gym had been overturned. Packing peanuts on the floor, streamers ripped apart, everywhere you step your shoes came away sticky with PVA glue and glitter. And Matt Donovan was hanging from the wall.

"Hey." He bobs his eyebrows, probably resigned to the fact that sooner or later _one_ of the kids on the prom committee would come and help him down. Until then, he'll content himself with a one-handed game of Kwazy Cupcakes on his phone.

"Who did this?" Cameron asks over the midi sounds of bleeping and 8-bit elves chirruping. Matt's literally duct-taped seven feet off the ground.

"Do you really have to ask?" Matt sounds bored. Or weary. Or just frustrated because who the hell had ever passed Sprinkle Town?

Probably all of the above.

He glances around, makes sure no one's looking before he flashes up to where Matt is and with one mighty heave tears all the duct tape down. Matt falls in a heavy, crumpled heap on top of him, glaring.

"Dude, you need to work on that." He squints at his screen. "Aww, shit."

—

"Are you trying to ruin my prom?" He doesn't mean to hiss, but what the fuck, Ketiley's been hanging around town, breaking necks, rewiring Stefan's humanity motherboard, plotting to kidnap his best friend to use as some kind of doppelganger blood vending machine. Press A-19 for O Neg.

"On the contrary, my love," Ketiley chirps, heeled boots swung onto the mahagony bar. She's watching Elena laughing over pool with Bonnie, rolling a cherry stem between her tongue and her teeth almost absentmindedly. It shouldn't look so attractive. "I found a certain few things… _lacking_, shall we say. So I helped."

"By tearing the gym apart."

"Darling, you had hearts hanging from the ceiling. The grotesque kind."

"Not any less grotesque than the heart I saw you yank out just last week?" Don't cross your arms. You aren't intimidated. "And you stuck Matt to the wall."

"The boy was in the way." She laughs. Like nectar dripping off a flower sticky with ants. "Have a seat, Cameron."

"I'm busy," he says shortly. "I have cleaning duty, thanks to you."

She leans back in her seat, eyes raking across his face, sizing him up. "I could help."

By that, she means compel. Probably.

"You've _helped_ enough." And right now he wants to murder everyone who'd ever voted for him to be Student Body President; all that extensive campaigning Bonnie had whipped up like magic, Elena's buttons, his mom's cupcakes. "The prom's tomorrow night."

"I came just in time, then."

Just in time. Sure.

Just in time for her to probably steal his inventory, cross out the ones she doesn't like, destroy everything he's spent the past two days on, _so we can fix it!_ she'll say with her Cheshire grin, the one that never quite reaches her eyes.

Everything the Ketiley way.

She flicks her eyes past his for a second: Stefan's stepped into the Grille, Damon in tow. Cam bristles, he can smell the gloat rolling off the older Salvatore in waves, but he'll keep his eyes on her.

She's swinging her legs off the bar, one after another, so slow as if they might be caught underwater, salt and sea awash around them. "We'll have to cut this chat short, darling. Another time."

She presses her hand into his chest, her nails pierce into his shirt. Blood blooms like poppies across the white cotton, and she smiles.

—

And of course he would be home, throwing out his ruined shirt when he finds it, slipped into his pocket like a letter in a bottle.

A perfect cherry stem knot.

—

How the hell did Stefan even do this, anyway?

Light on your feet, he remembers. Shoulders hunched. _Focus_, Cam.

Because Katherine might have turned him and Damon might have tried to stake him, but it's Stefan who brings him into the woods, teaches him how to hunt, to sink his teeth into fur and pelt and drink deep, no messes. No worries.

Except Stefan never quite got around to teaching him how to hold them down without having to _kill_ them. But maybe that's what Stefan had needed. All-humanity Stefan, he's still a vampire, he still needs to feel life brittle in his hands, so easily snapped, crushed to bits, thrown to the forest ground where they'll grow into trees, into dead roots.

A never-ending circle.

No humanity Stefan would roll his eyes and eat the face off their neighbours instead.

So Cam goes hunting alone, which might have been a little more than he can chew (much less bite), because this deer's bucking and kicking him in the face and _ow_, this better not leave a fucking bruise because he still needs a date for Prom.

"I don't want to kill you," he says, a little helplessly, arms struggling to rein the animal in. Can animals be compelled? Stefan never got that far into the lesson.

"Give into it."

His head whips around and Ketiley's leaning against a tree on the outskirts of the clearing. She's watching him, her eyes feverish like someone's lit a match behind them. They look eerie and blue in the moonlight.

The deer bucks: he grunts, wrapping his arms around its torso tighter—he hears its ribs crack and his heart breaks like a tide, and goddamnit Stefan, why'd you have to leave with her.

Ketiley's hearing is a remarkable thing, able to hear skin rustle through coarse fur from even where she's standing, hear the slap of his fingers against flank and suddenly she's in front of him, holding the deer down, eyes still bearing into his. Wide and hungry, but not for blood, no. Not this time.

"Go on." Her breathing is a little ragged as she watches him, as she pins the animal down without even having to strain her muscles. "Kill it."

"No, just hold it down for me—"

"Kill it, Cameron." Her voice is a snarl, something animal, _angry _that his first instinct isn't to maim, torture, kill. It echoes voice echoes through the empty forest; the trees rustle to underscore her command, and the stars shiver. "You feed or you die. You're hungry, I can hear it rushing in your veins, I can smell it in the sweat trickling down your back. You feed or you die—and it won't be starvation that takes you."

It will be me, she doesn't say. And she doesn't smile.

His dead heart stops, his muscles stretch, his mouth sticky and dry, and he closes his eyes, closes his eyes as he squeezes with everything he has in him, as the deer wheezes in alarm, as it kicks frantically, as it rears its head, as it goes limp.

The deer drops in a boneless heap to the ground and he stands there, shoulders heaving. He'd just wanted a _drink_, no one, not even an animal needed to die—

"Lovely," Ketiley says faintly and he wants to shake her, to push her into a tree. She's not commenting on colour swatches; this is the sound of bones crunching in his hands. Ketiley sounds breathless, like she gets off on this, and her eyes find his. "Have at it, sweetheart."

She's gone before he can even ask what the hell she was doing there in the first place.

—

The sheriff's lips are a hard line, eyes black like the heart of a storm. "I'm sorry to have to break up your prom."

People are just starting to amble out, blood still pounding in their veins, caught in the throes of a frenzied dance, throwing reproachful looks the Sheriff's way. Liz has long conditioned herself not to notice.

"Who is it?" he asks quietly. His corsage is limp in his hands. His date's gone home. He said he'd call, but she had that look in her eyes like she didn't want him to.

Because Ketiley had showed up in a gown twinkling like starlight. Onyx and silver. Smoked-up eyes, lips as pale as a winter rose. "I'm leaving town," she says as she leads, because she always leads, her feet never touching the ground, her hair smelling like something sweet and dangerous.

Her lips remind him of the aftertaste of blood on his tongue. He looks away.

"Good," he murmurs into her ear. "Bring your coffins with you."

"Oh, don't be like that. Family is a tricky thing, I'm sure you know." She sweeps him across the floor, looking appreciatively at the decorations. "Glad you took my advice about the hearts."

"Don't," he says, low in his throat. "Don't you even bring my father up."

She looks at him with sadness in her eyes, and he doesn't expect that. He knows her smirks, knows her leers, her taunts. Her nails digging into his flesh, her smile making their way into his dreams, always like a whisper from a shadowed arbour. He knows her to be the hybrid, the first and only. He knows her to be cruel, to be vindictive, to be ambitious. He doesn't know her to be sad.

It's like dismantling her armour, laying it in pieces, watch which parts she hides underneath the thickest metal and heaviest chainmail.

It's a reminder that something in her is still human, and he doesn't want to see it. He wants to see her masked in blood, bathed in the sweat and the dust of the empires she's burned to the ground.

That certainly makes her easier to hate.

After all, it's the beautiful women who are sweet, deadly, dangerous.

"You understand why I do it, then. It's a necessary evil, Cameron," she says. Strange how she has to look up at him to talk, but how towering she feels in his arms. "I don't want to lose as much as you don't want to hurt. It's instinct and _need_, it burns."

"You can't control everything," he says, a last resort, a helpless cry. Because he knows what she's going to say next. "Don't take Stefan with you, not again. Elena needs him."

"As do I." Her eyes cut. "Do you really know me to live without the things I want?"

And he knows her next question too, even if she doesn't word it as such.

"Come with me."

The song slows, she stills. She's not leading anymore. He's been taking them in mindless circles, his feet expertly toed around hers, his hand low on her back, pulling her into him.

The doors burst open. The music stops. The crowd moans.

His mother stands in the doorway, gun strapped to her waist.

His mother stands before him now, an unhappy flicker in her eyes. "Tyler's dead."

—

"You keep killing my friends."

The rain's pouring. She's standing over Tyler's fresh grave under a black umbrella. Her coat is black, her eyes are lined black, her heels are black. Everything about her is black, except her eyes. Her eyes are always a steely blue. They regard him coldly, like hell might freeze over if she looks anywhere else. "I didn't know the blood wouldn't take."

Didn't know, didn't care. You can't cross one out and circle the other with this.

There is no difference.

Not with her.

His shoulders wrack, his voice breaks, but he is not going to freaking cry in front of an Original hybrid. "Tyler was my captain. Did you know? He's a hard ass, he never lets up, but do you know how many games we've won together? He was a leader."

"And I am the Queen," she says softly the way she would slide a knife between your ribs. "This is how kingdoms are built, Cameron. War isn't won by just sitting around, picking at risks. War is won by teeth sinking into flesh, by claiming their blood as yours."

"I read all that Sun Tzu crap, thanks," he says sarcastically. Tyler isn't - wasn't - a _risk_. Even over his friend's grave he can manage snark, but it's the only thing keeping him going. The only thing keeping him from tearing open the ground and falling into it.

Maybe he should have gone home with Elena.

Ketiley crouches down next to him. "You have this ridiculous notion that all of you should live forever."

"We're vampires," he retorts. His eyes feel heavy, but he forces them to look into hers. "We're supposed to. You've lived a fraction of forever, you would know. Hurts to be all alone, doesn't it? Ever wondered why?"

He stands, rain falling off the folds of his suit like bullets. He gestures to Tyler's grave, the engravings in stone, the flowers melting into the puddles. "This is why."

"Cameron." She says his name like a warning. She can kill him. She's a thousand years old. She wears Chanel to look timeless, old as grace, because she is. She is not bound by human conventions. She can kill him right now, make it look poetic, compel him to want it.

She pulls herself into her full height, doesn't need her heels to look terrifying, but they certainly help.

"This isn't a war, Kati," he says. He hopes it's rain in his eyes, not… the alternative. Because that would suck. "This was never a war until you made it one."

"Oh, love." She's looking at him like last night again, like she's lifting her visor, pulling off her helmet, shaking blood out of her hair. Bare, beautiful. All for him. "You've not been here long enough."

—

Ketiley leaves and takes Stefan with her.

Elena spends the night crying into his shoulder, Bonnie curled up in a ball in his armchair.

"I can't make it stop, Cam," Elena gasps, clutching the blankets to her neck. "Alaric, Tyler, Stefan—I can't make it stop hurting."

But it will, he wants to tell her. It's sad and it's heartbreaking, but it passes. They'll forget.

For now, he holds her.

Liz comes in, her lips still a hard line, but she brings tea with her and asks if there's anything she can do.

There's a hard lump in his throat that he swallows down with tea and honey. This is how things always used to be, wasn't it? Except Elena would be crying about cheer meets lost, Bonnie would be silent because of a plan brewing in her head, not half-dreamed witchy incantations getting lost in there. He would always pretend like he understood, but now, he doesn't even bother.

Like any of them will ever understand how their lives turned out this way.

—

"She'll be back, you know." Damon's slid into the stool next to him. "She always does come back."

"Not hunkering to talk to you right now, Damon," he spits out his name like bad liquor. "So why don't you make like a tree and leave?"

"Brevity is the soul of wit," Damon says, motioning for a drink. He steals one of his cherries. "Try: fuck off. I might listen."

"Fuck off," he mutters into his own drink. He looks to the side. Damon's still here.

"I said _might_."

"Well, I _might_ not consider smashing this glass down your throat if you leave now," he says. He's sick of this, he's sick of Damon, sick of remembering being his human punching bag, compelled inside out whenever the Salvatore's around.

"Touchy." If he cared to look, he supposes Damon looks a little lost without Stefan.

If he cared.

He doesn't.

He chews on a cherry, works it between his teeth. Waits for the ball to drop.

And then the reluctant, "How's Elena?"

Gotcha.

His glass slips from his hands then, crashes right into the wall in front of them and before he knows it he has Damon by the neck, cracking the bar top with Damon's indestructible spine. "Don't you fucking _touch_ her. Stefan may not be here but I still am, and I swear to God, if you even come _near_ her—"

He's on the ground, cheek pressed into dusty wood, breathing in angry desperate gusts. Damon's knee cracking his back.

"I don't know what's gotten your balls screwed so tight, Cammie," Damon rasps, "but you don't get to talk to me like that. You hear? I've got two hundred years on you give or take, baby vamp." He cracks a few of his ribs for good measure before standing up, surveying the ruined bartop.

The Grille has gone very still.

Damon snorts and tosses his head at the mess he's left behind. "And you'd think a dickhead like you would be good at tying cherry knots."

—

He still has that cherry stem knot. It's wilted and dry now, pressed flat between his forefinger and thumb.

He flicks it out his window.

When he turns out the light hours later he tries to forget the forty minutes he spent looking for it in the grass.

—

_**fin**_

* * *

So, the name. I thought about picking something that started with N, but this was the first name I saw, the first one I liked. Ketiley, or Kætiløy is an old Nordic name pronounced KAI (AI as in English 'hair') • tea (tea as in English 'tea') • leuille (euille as in French 'feuille'). I searched long and far for the meaning, but couldn't find it. If anyone knows, feel free to drop it in my ask because I am insanely curious!

I did a little fancasting of my own; it isn't much, but you can find it on my tumblr. n_n

Pleeease tell me what you thought of this; I'd really appreciate it.

Til next time.


End file.
